Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Part#: Some High Number +3

[Pizza!Pizza!]

finally saw Zombieland 2

9/10 - every bit as good as the first one.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

finally saw Zombieland 2

9/10 - every bit as good as the first one.

 

[nameless1]

He is not wrong, to be honest.


Unfortunately, that is also why I am disappointed by it. The sequel took way too long to come to fruition, and the same humour has become stale nowadays. The perceptions of the actors have grown too, and this type of project is just effortless for them.

 

[ORRFForever]

finally saw Zombieland 2

9/10 - every bit as good as the first one.

I never understood the appeal of the first one.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Anyone watch the trailer for Tenet? I'm sure it'll be a great movie but I'm not sold on John David Washington as the lead. Dude's acting seems too every-man rather than main charismatic actor. Even in BlacKkKlansman, he was outshone by Adam Driver and Topher Grace and in this one, it'll probably be by Robert Pattinson and that French girl. I don't remember Nolan casting black actors in leading roles so it's nice that he's finally done it but not sure if the dude is the right choice.

1917 (2019) - 7.5/10

I'm not denying that it's good, it has a lot of great shots, it's just a bit....too much isn't it? It's like a one-tone movie in terms of emotion. Some people said that it being like a multi-level video game really did give it a flat tone.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

I thought the first Zombieland was okay. Had decent moments. Didn't mind the characters, had some decent zombie splatter and laughs. Not great...but a good-ish entry in the zombie apocalypse comedy genre. The second was tired, stale, nowhere near as funny, and painfully stupid after about the halfway point.

 

[Osprey]

The Lost World (1925) - 8/10 (Loved it)

A team of adventurers journey to South America to investigate tales of living dinosaurs in this first adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel. This has long been my favorite silent movie, partly because of the subject matter, partly because the novel is one of my favorites and partly because it's one of the most exciting silent movies. This was the first ever movie to depict dinosaurs and was quite influential, most especially upon 1933's King Kong (which also used stop-motion animation) and, 60 years later, the Jurassic Park series (so much that the sequel to Jurassic Park re-imagined its plot and even took its title). The movie is not terribly faithful to Doyle's novel and could've used a little more attention paid to the characters (especially Professor Challenger), but the dinosaurs are the real stars. They might look crude and a little silly to the modern eye, but audiences had never seen anything like it in 1925. It was probably as mind blowing back then as seeing Jurassic Park's CGI dinosaurs was for us in 1993. It's worth watching for the significance of its special effects, if you're a fan of King Kong (because of the influence that it clearly had on that classic) or even if you just like a good adventure. It's in the public domain, so it's easy to watch, such as with this good quality version on YouTube:

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Saturday Night Fever

with John Travolta in his star-making performance, and other people overshadowed by him.

1977 Brooklyn. The pants are tight, the cars are big and the hair is bigger. Travolta disappears into the role of Tony Manero, local paint store clerk and disco dancing lord of the local nightclub. He's also the leader of his local gang of loud Italian punks, and the object of affection for every young woman who comes into inhaling distance of his pheromones. Except for one...who he spots on the dance floor and instantly becomes smitten with. After much inarticulate courting, she agrees to be his dance partner for the upcoming competition, but Tony's got other worries. His older brother Frank has scandalized the family by leaving the priesthood, one of his buddies lands in the hospital after a bad gang beating, and the runt of the group has gotten his very Catholic girlfriend pregnant. There's also racial tension, drug use, gang fights, sexual assault, and most terrifying of all, nonstop disco music on the turntable.

I've seen bits and pieces of this over the years, but I'd never actually sat down and watched this thing all the way through before. And...it's a damn good movie. It's an instantly authentic slice of a very particular piece of history. Never is anything less than totally believable. I've never really taken John Travolta seriously as an actor, but he crushes it out of the park with Tony Manero. At no point are you ever in any doubt that he's a real person with real problems and real emotions. And he's all about the disco moves. If you're into that kind of thing.

When my daughter was about 7 or 8, she walked into the living room where by random channel-surfing chance, I stopped on the official music video for Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees. My wife and I assured her that upon release, it was the coolest thing on the planet at that time, bar none. I'll never forget the look of of incredulous horror on her face at that revelation.

Sub-zero cool in 1977. Believe it or not.

 

[kihei]

Pablo Larrain (No; Ema; Neruda) directed an early movie of his called Tony Manero about a guy who tries to emulate him. It was on MUBI but I passed on it and it is now unavailable. After your review, I wish I'd watched it.

 

[Osprey]

When my daughter was about 7 or 8, she walked into the living room where by random channel-surfing chance, I stopped on the official music video for Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees. My wife and I assured her that upon release, it was the coolest thing on the planet at that time, bar none. I'll never forget the look of of incredulous horror on her face at that revelation.

Speaking of which, you should now watch the 1983 sequel, Staying Alive. It was written, produced and directed by Sylvester Stallone and boasts a rare 0% critic score at Rotten Tomatoes. I eagerly await that review.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Pablo Larrain (No; Ema; Neruda) directed an early movie of his called Tony Manero about a guy who tries to emulate him. It was on MUBI but I passed on it and it is now unavailable. After your review, I wish I'd watched it.

Just googled it; actually supposed to be pretty good. Was Chile's entry in the best foreign language Oscar when it was released.

Speaking of which, you should now watch the 1983 sequel, Staying Alive. It was written, produced and directed by Sylvester Stallone and boasts a rare 0% critic score at Rotten Tomatoes. I eagerly await that review.

I've heard of Staying Alive. I even remember watching the episode of Siskel and Ebert where they tore it apart. Gonna be a hard pass there.

 

[ORRFForever]

Fantasy Island (2020) :

When you see "Blumhouse" in a film's title, you know your odds of seeing a quality movie are not good. Blumhouse specializes in making inexpensive horror movies and then they hope people are curious/stupid enough to buy tickets. For most of their films, it doesn't take much to be profitable - Fantasy Island's budget was a paltry $7,000,000.

As for the film itself...

Fantasy Island puts a dark spin on the campy 1970's show. The 2020 version isn't clever or interesting, just violent and confusing.

2.5/10

 

[kihei]

Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics (2020) Directed by Donick Cary 5A (documentary)

This is one of those things that must have seemed like a good idea at the time. The aim of this documentary is to provide a balanced but upbeat view of psychedelic drug taking, with the emphasis primarily on LSD and mushrooms, the latter of which is becoming legal in several US cites. Cautionary tales and good advice are mixed in with often comic interviews from a number of celebrities, including Sting (the best of the lot by far), Sarah Silverman, Ben Stiller, ASAP Rocky, Carrie Fisher (she's hilarious), Deepak Chopra, and others. Most of the experiences are positive, though some {Ben Stiller} are not--the doc does try to play fair. The problem is that too many of the interviews are descriptive--"then the acorn talked to me"--rather than analytic. A few people do get at why they thought their experiences were valuable, even life-altering occurrences. But too often one is stuck with a bunch of celebs talking about their "far out, man" experiences while stoned. Predictably this gets just as tedious after awhile as you might imagine it to be, though the graphics are sometimes fun and help a bit. Have a Good Trip does a service for acid, just not much of one. It's a big opportunity wasted unfortunately.

Available on Netflix

 

[Osprey]

Inheritance (2020) - 6/10 (Liked it)

When a wealthy patriarch dies, his district attorney daughter (Lily Collins) inherits a horrible family secret. It's a thriller with a pretty captivating premise, and I don't want to give away exactly what that is (because it's probably more fun to not know, but if you have to know, see the spoiler section below) so I'll just say that it involves Simon Pegg in a pretty un-Simon Pegg-like role. It feels like he always just plays himself, so him playing out of character was refreshing to me. He and Collins are both pretty good, but the movie really relies on his performance. The plot isn't very believable, so you sort of just need to buy into it and not question the logic at several points. It has a lot of revelations and twists, most of which are predictable and/or unbelievable, but at least they keep it moving along and interesting. I didn't really have a problem with the pacing, but 15 minutes probably could've been shaved off. In a lot of ways, it's a very run-of-the-mill thriller, but with a unique enough premise that I stayed engaged. The critics have really panned it, but, maybe partly because I went into it with such low expectations, I actually ended up liking it... not a lot, but enough that I'm glad that I watched it in spite of the critics.

If you need to know what the premise is and don't mind being told the surprise that occurs 20 minutes in...

Spoiler

The daughter's "inheritance" is a man (Pegg) that her father has been keeping chained up in a bunker beneath the family property for 30 years. She wants to learn why and what he knows before helping him, but she's also very hesitant to trust him, giving the film a feel similar to The Silence of the Lambs (but, obviously, not nearly on that level).

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Event Horizon

with Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, and other, very traumatized people.

Year 2047. We've colonized the moon, Mars, and local space travel is so commonplace that rescue ships are a thing. Captain Miller (Fishburne) commands one such ship, and it's bailing out to Neptune on a secret mission. Once there, Dr. Weir (Miller) informs them that they're looking for the legendary ship Event Horizon. It was the first attempt at faster than light travel, bound for Proxima Centauri. Weir created its experimental engine, the gravity drive. It's a steampunk S&M nightmare surrounded by a roomful of spikes, and something's clearly deeply wrong. The Event Horizon's crew is splattered all over what's left of the bridge, and the rescue ship's crew all starts to experience terrifying hallucinations. Where has the ship really been? What does that garbled screaming in the ship's log say? And is it really a good idea to have all those sharp objects lying around?

Sci-fi horror artifact that's become very hard to run across since its 1997 release. There was some flap about the rights and various different cuts of the movie, and it's very rare to see it showing anywhere now. I wondered if it held up...and it kinda does. Basically Hellraiser in space. I remember it being a lot better and a lot scarier. Could've gone further in certain scenes...but maybe that's the difference in times. Still, catch it if you can. Like I said, hard to find. Also, this movie marks approximately the 2389745392nd time in a sci-fi movie or tv show where a character demonstrates FTL travel by taking a piece of paper, folding it in half, poking a hole through the ends with a pen, sending it through the hole, then unfolding the paper.

Not for the squeamish.

What a long, strange trip it's been...

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Fracture (2007) - 7.5/10

Ryan Gosling plays the Jodie Foster role as a prosecutor while Anthony Hopkins plays Anthony Hopkins....it's not as good as Silence of The Lambs but it isn't far. You get some added courtroom drama but a lot of slow montage-ish Hollywood scenes.

edit: Actually Gosling was better than Hopkins in this film. Hopkins tried to do the whole Hannibal thing minus the film's creepy atmosphere and it felt like a bit of a lame rehash.

 

[Jevo]

The River (1951) dir. Jean Renoir

In Bengal in the interwar period, Harriet is a young teenager in a British family. Together with her sister Valerie, and the neighbour girl, the half-indian Melanie all fall for the handsome Captain John, Melanie's distant cousin from America and a vetaran from the war who lost one of his legs. Harriet being a young girl experiencing love for the first time, is not happy when Captain John doesn't show her much attention. The audience however breath a sigh of relief, when the adult John puts his attention at the more age appropriate Valerie. The story could have been a fun look at the misguided love many young people feel when the experience it for the first time, if the story had been set anywhere but India. Granted India looks absoloutely gorgeous in Technicolor, but that's the best thing I can say about it. But the movie really feels like a shameful piece of orientalism. India and indian culture is oh so exciting and exotic to the main characters. But Indians themselves might as well not even exist. Harriets father proudly shows off his sweatshop (his words), and we hear about he loves the beautiful sight of works in long lines carrying big piles of Jute there. There's basically two Indian characters. The nanny, who is basically just a magical negro. And Melanie, who is half-white, and whose whole character arc is her rejecting Indian culture and instead choosing a western lifestyle. With 2020 eyes, this is just a very strange experience to watch, because of how unashamed it is, but things were probably different 70 years ago. The strange thing is, that in 2012 this was the 131st best movie ever made according to the Sight and Sound poll. I know it's voted on mainly by old white guys, but still. Renoir has made so many great movies, and many people found this one worthy of getting a vote? I don't get it.

 

[kihei]

The River (1951) dir. Jean Renoir

...The strange thing is, that in 2012 this was the 131st best movie ever made according to the Sight and Sound poll. I know it's voted on mainly by old white guys, but still....

Damn right! Those old turkeys should have been put out to pasture ages ago. Oh.....wait.

 

[kihei]

I haven't seen The River in a very long time, and though I remember the colonial perspective dominating the film, the only thing that has really stayed with me is the cobra sequence. So, Jevo, does the movie come across as a reflection of a particular time and place or as an endorsement of it? I would have less of a problem with it, then, if it were the former rather than the latter.

On the other hand, Renoir may be just a victim of his time and class. But being the creator of The Rules of the Game, one would have hoped that he retained a more sophisticated view about colonialism than was popular in France and in England at the time.

 

[Jevo]

I don't think it's directly an endorsment of it. I belive the novel it's based on is basically Rumer Godden's experience as a young girl British girl in India, and I believe it probably accurately represents how she experienced her own upbringing, and I have no doubt she geniunly liked India, and had nothing against Indians. But I think there's also a lot of rose tinted glasses here. To me, based on the film, she fails to reflect in any way on the society she grew up in. The lack of reflection and selfawareness is really what makes me most annoyed about the film. She might have claimed that, that is not the point of the story, and it probably wasn't. But it means that the movie presents a world view that is very antiquated in 2020. I was surprised to find this coming from Renoir as well. I have always regarded him as a very humanist director, and in that regard this is a low point for him for sure.

 

[Jevo]

Damn right! Those old turkeys should have been put out to pasture ages ago. Oh.....wait.

I mean, they also put Listen to Britain, a literal piece of WWII propaganda, on there. So maybe some of them might deserve to put out to pasture?

 

[kihei]

I mean, they also put Listen to Britain, a literal piece of WWII propaganda, on there. So maybe some of them might deserve to put out to pasture?

Couldn't agree more. Just as long as it ain't me that gets the axe.

 

[tacogeoff]

Just finished JoJo Rabbit. what a quirky but great film 9/10 for me as I was fully entertained from comedy to tragedy. I think I will watch it again this week as I'm sure I missed out on some underlying things but overall what a film.

 

[nameless1]

Anyone watch the trailer for Tenet? I'm sure it'll be a great movie but I'm not sold on John David Washington as the lead. Dude's acting seems too every-man rather than main charismatic actor. Even in BlacKkKlansman, he was outshone by Adam Driver and Topher Grace and in this one, it'll probably be by Robert Pattinson and that French girl. I don't remember Nolan casting black actors in leading roles so it's nice that he's finally done it but not sure if the dude is the right choice.

I actually liked Washington's performance in BlacKKKlansman. He has leading man qualities in my book, and he will likely be fine in Tenet, but since he does not have a long resume, I will take a cautiously optimistic approach towards him.

Grace always plays a version of Eric Foreman in any role. If there is a everyday man, it is him.


I am still not a fan of Driver, unlike John Oliver, but he just creeps up on you. Slowly, he has amassed quite a resume, and I can no longer deny that he is indeed a good actor. He is not an explosive actor, but he still manages to be memorable.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Dead & Buried (Sherman, 1981) - I don't think I'd ever seen that one, even though it was in every video stores when these places were my second home. It seems there was a lot of problems with re-editing and changes of tone, but it still kind of works. It's a poor man's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with some early work by Stan Winston and Robert Englund, and it has Dan O'Bannon's name in the credits. Oh there's one shot that really got me wondering and that is explained in the IMDB trivia (the shot goes from outside in front of the house to inside, "through the door"): "The scene where Janet comes home and speaks to Dan briefly, was done in one long, elaborate tracking shot. The shot began with a gigging that attached the front door of the Gillis house to the camera. The camera captures Janet pulling up, pulls back as she approaches, and the crew quickly bolts the door in the door frame (detaching it from the camera rigging). The shot then continues to pull back revealing the door as Janet opens it, then follows her as she enters the living room and speaks to Dan." That's impressive. Today that's automatic CGI. 4/10

A fun introduction by Del Toro:




(Oh and I wanted to quote myself to take part in the discussion on Zombieland 1 & 2, but my post about them seems to have disappeared from the forum, weird)